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Introduction

Middle English Debt and the Spirit of Capitalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2024

Anne Schuurman
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
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Summary

The Introduction defines debt as a financial tool and as a theological concept, summarizing the role of debt in the late medieval English economy and in the sacrament of penance. This dual definition challenges the “separate spheres” interpretive paradigm that dominates literary history. A paradigm in which economics and theology are constitutive of two ideally separate modes, this dominant interpretive approach frames the shift from feudalism to capitalism as a shift from the traditional bonds of hierarchy and communalism to modern individualism and competitive acquisition. Understanding capitalism as an economy of debt makes possible a new perspective on economic change in late medieval England, one that revises Weber’s spirit of capitalism and challenges Weberian periodisation. The image of God as a bookkeeper and the concomitant understanding of sin as a debt that cannot be fully discharged is first elaborated and disseminated en masse in the late medieval flowering of vernacular literature in England and in Europe. This, I argue, is the cultural site where the systematization of the ethical conduct of life is imagined for the first time not only as a possibility for all people, but as a requirement.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • Introduction
  • Anne Schuurman, University of Western Ontario
  • Book: The Theology of Debt in Late Medieval English Literature
  • Online publication: 04 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009385947.002
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  • Introduction
  • Anne Schuurman, University of Western Ontario
  • Book: The Theology of Debt in Late Medieval English Literature
  • Online publication: 04 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009385947.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Anne Schuurman, University of Western Ontario
  • Book: The Theology of Debt in Late Medieval English Literature
  • Online publication: 04 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009385947.002
Available formats
×